Lastschriftzahlung: Easycash sammels data about good and bad customers - Golem.de - of course purchasing behavior related to account numbers, that's not personal data ... how stupid do companies like this think we are? And especially brazen: we as customers have no influence on this, it just goes past us.
owl
In the eye of the law — Der Freitag - yeah, yeah, the state would never create unauthorized data collections, the state simply legalizes the nonsense it produces.
Street View: Google eavesdropped on open WLANs - that's exactly the problem with Streetview. Not in the pure photos. But in the entire program - the integration of various things in a large-scale scan. The combination with all the databases that Google already has. The merging of various information sources, purely from the geek's perspective as "wow, hey, look at all the stuff we've got, now let's just pull out everything we can". Or put another way: just imagine, the cars didn't belong to Google, but to the state. And the program, the databases and the information gathering frenzy wasn't a company in America, but our state. Would the accumulation of information and data then appeal to you as much as Streetview? If it were the state, at least there would be the appearance of democratic control over this gigantic database.
CSU: Refusal to block the internet violates agreements - Golem.de - "Content that is banned must be removed so that it is no longer accessible to anyone. Users could bypass blocks within a few minutes. Those who insist on this have no idea about modern technologies, according to the minister. 'And furthermore, we do not want such a blocking infrastructure to be set up because it inherently poses the risk that it is not only used for such content, but can theoretically also be used for other purposes,' said Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger."
EU Commission wants to introduce Internet blocks - proof of how brainless the Commission construct is and how urgently Europe needs to be put on sensible, democratic feet. We now have to deal with this nonsense again, even though it's finally done locally - and European commission bureaucracy is even harder to overcome than Schäuble's fantasies. For Schäuble, one election and a change of ministers was enough, but the time until the next commission composition is long.
An experiment in real-time: The human becomes a data set - Background - Feuilleton - FAZ.NET - I rarely link to FAZ, but if they let Frank Rieger write about the problems of data collection mania, then you have to honor it with a link, especially if the article is really very good.
Data protectionists criticize "electronic income verification" - and yet another nonsensical data collection action that will only lead to other authorities wanting these data for completely different purposes. What does the state have to do with whether an employee has received warnings or shows "misconduct" (which is then, after all, a matter of interpretation by the employer)? What does the state have to do with whether and how long an employee has gone on strike? The fact that data pools are not secured against misuse should be well known by now. And that any data collection arouses the hunger of other authorities, as well.
Thawte revokes personal email certificates - oh yes, I still remember the silly discussions that Verisign and Thawte as central signature authorities were much more trustworthy than the grassroots web-of-trust with PGP at that time. Funny, PGP (and now gpg) keys still work and will continue to work. And since a real web-of-trust was established there, it doesn't matter if a server in the gpg signature chain is shut down. But of course, the commercial certificates are much better ...
Von der Leyen wants to tackle right-wing content on the net - nonsense from Berlin. The opponents of the ineffective Trivial Blockade have indeed recipes against child pornography on the internet, as Alwar Freude has proven with his "Now let's write to the providers and take sites offline". But concrete activities are not compatible with the populism program of a learning-resistant incompetence (some call it also Federal Minister).
Federal incompetence and wobbly dachshund - "In view of the 'numerous violations of intellectual property on the Internet', the minister also wondered whether, for example, stronger regulation of the network is necessary. This will certainly 'occupy politics for the next few years', what will follow from the planned blocks of child pornographic pages 'will follow', she did not completely rule out an expansion to illegal offers of protected works" - oh, first she warned about the evil Zensursula, and now she is already tipping over in exactly the direction she warned about. What was that about the desires that are awakened? They seem to have been awakened in her. As could generally be expected from the prolethicians in Berlin.
Von der Leyen: Only skilled users can bypass blocks - so everyone except politicians.
Surveillance mania and internet censorship - "If the law comes into force as planned, however, every internet user should carefully consider whether they still want to visit unknown web addresses. If one were to accidentally or provoked by malicious hints to a stop sign, then de facto a house search or worse would threaten. Staudigl also confirmed this: 'Whether and possibly who has committed an offense can regularly only be clarified through the subsequent criminal investigations.'" - because, after all, we live in a democratic legal state, not in a banana republic where the state can assume what it wants without control by the citizen and where citizens then simply feel the full force of the power apparatus due to technical proto-indicators. Or maybe not?
Federal government wants to block internet access with access controls - I'm already looking forward to the first trojan, or the first XSS attack, which will then call up sites from the block list in the background. Or how about HTML emails that refer to images on blocked pages? You can definitely get a lot of suspects that way ...
BKA witness lies (badly) about forged files - at annalist. Go read.
wikileaks und die Sperrlisten - was obvious, right? Does anyone really believe it's only about blocking child pornographic content? Wikileaks will probably soon appear on the block list as well, just like other undesirable sources on the net.
Government wants to accelerate the expansion of online searches - of course, the lying pack in Berlin doesn't stick to what they themselves have said. Why bother. And constitutional concerns? Then the crazy wheelchair user will complain again about the Federal Constitutional Court for interfering. Meanwhile, the Federal Constitutional Court has been the only thing protecting us from the Berlin proletarians for quite some time.
Federal Constitutional Court rules against voting computers - a victory of reason over the penny-pinchers at the ballot box. Yes, it may be true that elections are expensive to conduct. But if we throw the principles of free, democratic and verifiable elections overboard just because a few euros are involved, we might as well do away with the whole state. It's a shame that in recent times, the Constitutional Court has generally had to put a stop to the madness from Berlin. One would actually think that these prolethicians in Berlin, who have to swear an oath to the constitution when they assume their ministerial offices, would actually know the constitution ...
Union wants to have children monitored as well - it's not about countering terrorism, but solely about establishing a surveillance state while no one is looking or the opportunity is good. The goal of a surveillance state is to secure the state as an apparatus, not the citizen. Usually, this becomes "necessary" when the state leaves the framework of the democratic rule of law, or plans to do so.
US-Hacker copies RFID badges unnoticed - but our prolethicians, and above all the federal interior minister, claimed that such things would only be science fiction nonsense. And anyone who is against the RFID chips in the badges is simply a paranoid person. Why doesn't the bunch in Berlin even bother anymore when they try to screw us around?
Nokia pushes through surveillance rights for emails - we buy ourselves a government. The model will certainly soon be adopted in Germany by various large employers (Deutsche Bahn and Deutsche Telekom anyone?).
IT-Gipfel: Vertrauenswürdige De-Mail von Innenministerium und Telekom - so the company that wants to put a trojan on every PC and the company that decided arbitrarily and unilaterally to tap phones that interest them, want to build a "trusted" email platform together. Did I get that right?
"Secure Identity = Unique Identity" - "He is convinced that citizens' informational self-determination can be better protected by new technologies, so one should not always see such systems as a threat scenario." - could it be because the protection of informational self-determination has no place at all in their entire presentation? Why is it repeatedly claimed without any basis that something protects informational self-determination, when there is no evidence or concrete example for this? A bit more care in lying would really be appropriate.
Bundestag's election inspector calls voting computers secure - why are our politicians always struck by particularly great stupidity? Isn't Hansel even able to read current press, where even in the USA states are backpedaling on the topic of voting computers, where the manufacturers of these devices had to take such massive image losses that one even changed its name? Not to mention all the incidents in Europe and the good coverage of the topic by the CCC? Are only dumb idiots getting jobs in the government? Shouldn't the protection of one of the most important democratic means - for the politicians: I'm talking about elections, not about the allowances - be particularly worthy of protection and in case of concrete indications of insecurity, rather play it safe and go with paper+pen?
The Schräuble again - "The State Security of the GDR had several hundred thousand employees, made people spy on each other, and created an 'atmosphere of fear.'" - doesn't even know what he's complaining about, it fits ... (okay, there's still some catching up to do in terms of denouncing, but we'll manage that). The biggest alarmist is the wheelchair user himself, who, without any real verifiable facts, invents all sorts of threat scenarios and then solves them by hollowing out the Basic Law. And thus poses a far greater danger to the constitution than the terrorists who were recently arrested in such an advertising-effective manner (and then released again due to a lack of anything concrete).
Report: Erotic entrepreneur stores T-Mobile customer database - the whole thing is getting more absurd and strange. Although admittedly, storing the 17 million Deutsche Telekom data sets with an erotic entrepreneur has a certain charm. Especially since he probably knows more about data protection and securing customer data than Deutsche Telekom apparently does ...
17 million customer data stolen from T-Mobile - bad enough that so much data is circulating without the public knowing for 2 years. Embarrassing, however, is also the reaction of the press: the few celebrities stand out barely, with 17 million, but apparently they are much more important ...
Betrayed and sold - how was it again, Mr. Schäuble? Are the data safe with the state?
AK Vorrat publishes secret data exchange agreement - with what our politicians are doing and how they trample the constitution and civil rights, we don't even need terrorists anymore. Soon politicians can justify any nonsense by referring to the nonsense of their predecessors. Recursive dumbing down. And who did it? The crazy wheelchair user and the federal incompetence.
Confidentiality, integrity and verifiability - with whom? - "Private service providers are to join forces to form a network of certified citizen portals, which is to be financed either by savings in the economy and administration, for example by eliminating the need to send invoices, or by an "E-Porto". - thanks, but no thanks.
US Intelligence Agencies: Terrorists Could Use Online Role-Playing Games to Plan Attacks - Ongoing summer doldrums debate in the USA? Don't they have a few banks and insurance companies to worry about? The impact of a collapse at AIG would certainly be much greater than these movie horror scenarios that some self-important people come up with. Unfortunately, such theorists with their contrived nonsense are increasingly found here as well. Instead of dealing with real dangers (when will there finally be a speed limit on highways?), more and more absurd proposals on the topic of surveillance are coming up, which will classically protect us from non-existent problems. And money is then spent on such nonsense ...
heise online - 15.09.08 - ITU discusses better traceability of IP addresses - "In the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a procedure is being discussed that can help track IP addresses better. According to a preliminary document published by CNET News from the ITU Working Group 17 (SG 17), 'IP Traceback' is intended to help prevent Denial-of-Service attacks or track down network criminals, but also to make applications on the network more reliable overall. Data protection experts, however, warn of possible misuse. Particular mistrust was apparently aroused by the fact that the first proposal comes from the researcher Tian Huirong, who works at the Chinese Academy for Telecommunication Research (CATR), which is under the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry." - of course in the ITU, which has been accused for some time of increasingly and strongly interfering in internet regulation and standardization. And which has often shown that its mechanisms are anything but open - and thus pretty much contrary to the approach of the IETF. It fits perfectly, like the proverbial ass on the bucket, when a goat is made into a data protection gardener.
Ex-BND Chief: Plans for covert online searches unconstitutional - it's nice that he says that. But he is the former BND chief after all. Would he have said the same thing during his active time? Probably not. The wolf becomes a sheep more easily when he can only eat oatmeal.
Copyright infringement: Courts set low threshold for information claim against providers - "If other courts follow this extremely broad interpretation of 'commercial scale', it is to be expected that the civil courts will then be confronted with the same flood of applications that law enforcement agencies are currently confronted with." - well, that was to be expected. So once again, only hope remains for Karlsruhe and a somewhat more reasonable basic decision.
Dealing with Resident Registration Data: The Shadow Registration Offices - how was that, Mr. Schäuble? "The data is safe in the hands of the state"? And of course, anyone who thinks differently is just a paranoid?
SPD paves the way for sensitive data exchange with the USA - Special democratic data protection understanding: non-existent. Just casually sell data - and what is classified as serious crime is defined by the USA as they see fit (even here, terrorism has become a term that everyone can stretch to fit their needs).
Data Protection Experts: Google Analytics Violates User Rights - well, this assessment was somewhat predictable. I'm curious to see what else will come up in the near future. Will Google give in? I doubt it. And even if they do - how credible would an (unverifiable!) assurance from Google be?
Court Ruling Will Expose Viewing Habits of YouTube Users - if anyone thinks that only in this country courts make strange decisions regarding the disclosure of private data, take a look at this. Have you watched videos on YouTube? If so, Viacom will now have to be freshly served this information by Google, unless Google finds a way to convince the court of the absurdity of it. Great, isn't it? Just like that, all access data on YouTube handed over to a company in the music industry that is by no means acting selflessly and is, of course, extremely interested in this data.
Strange practice at mobile phone contract trading portal - "For example, a bank statement must be provided to prove the liquidity of the new customer." - eh, hello? Bank statements contain much more than just statements about liquidity. What a stupid idea is that? And probably the users will do the nonsense and obediently present their regular bookings to some stranger ...
Data trading with the FBI - and this is how we are sold and traded. And the fact that perhaps one or the other state still has rudimentary data protection regulations that prohibit such trading does not interest anyone either.
Surveillance mania in Berlin - "I have nothing to hide" is what many of those who fell into the surveillance mania might have said ... (I can't get 1100 urgent suspects together in Berlin - we don't even have that many members of parliament ...)
Unemployment benefits from 2012 only with chip card - Bureaucracy reduction, everything clear. And we are supposed to believe that? The "advantages" are just so far-fetched ...
Retail theft - "The main reasons for this dilemma, according to retail, are the fact that with increasingly longer store opening hours and at the same time fewer and fewer staff, effective prevention is becoming increasingly difficult." - eh, hello? Turning retail stores into service deserts with (insufficiently trained) staff shortages was indeed the decision of the retail sector. Yes, if you lay off people, cut jobs and extend store opening hours, you don't exactly get something positive out of it. Welcome to reality ... (of course, the solution is already at hand with surveillance and store detectives - probably soon more store detectives than salespeople, which of course makes great sense ...)
Telekom eavesdropped on alleged hackers - "According to the report, electronic surveillance of four telephone numbers in Hennef, Rhineland, began in December 1996 under the codename 'Bunny'. Conversation contents were also recorded. A total of nearly 120 calls were reportedly captured." - another reason why such fundamental infrastructure as telecommunications simply does not belong in private hands, as it can be controlled far too little. However, abuse cannot be ruled out even in state-owned companies or agencies, but at least there are rudimentary controls in place.
classic investigation still better than mass tests - "However, it was not the mass test that led to the current arrest, but classic investigative work. As the Dresden Public Prosecutor's Office, the Saxon State Criminal Police Office and members of the Heller Investigative Group announced yesterday, Wednesday, investigators had visited the suspect on May 21, 2008, and asked him for a DNA sample because the man had lived near the crime scenes at the time of the crime and had driven a car with a partially recognized license plate."
Government wants to hand over personal citizen data to the USA - "The Bundestag was not involved in the negotiations and was not informed, complain the Liberals. The federal government had not taken a position on the inquiry of the FDP in the interior committee and even denied the incident." - it's nice how we can rely on our government to betray and sell us, and completely ignore the Bundestag in the process. Especially piquant when it's about data that the federal government and its executing authorities shouldn't even have ...
no-racism.net: Press release by the Legal Aid on the wave of repression - "Against twelve people, for whom house searches have taken place, there are arrest warrants. These are justified by the danger of obscuring, as the affected persons have communicated with encrypted emails, as well as the danger of committing the offense, because the affected persons have been active in the animal rights scene for a long time." - currently only in Austria, but we can well imagine when this will also happen in Germany.
Final farewell to voting computers in the Netherlands - Golem.de - "The Dutch Ministry of the Interior announced the final farewell to voting computers on Friday. In the future, citizens in the country will once again cast their votes with pen and paper. The Dutch Council of Ministers was prompted to make this decision after massive security vulnerabilities in the voting computers were proven last year. The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) demonstrated in mid-2007 how the ROM memory of a Nedap computer can be replaced with a manipulated ROM within 60 seconds. Researchers and the civil rights initiative "Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet" ("We do not trust voting computers") had demonstrated further security vulnerabilities." - wouldn't it be great if our politicians would react similarly? However, this is less likely to be expected.
hacksector.cc as a model case for § 202 c? - this is where we see what this infamous "hacker paragraph" leads to. Pointless action against a forum. Where is the alleged technical competence of the investigating authorities and the appropriate assessment of the tools in question? All the stupid soothing talk of the prolethicians in Berlin turns out to be exactly that: stupid nonsense without any reference to reality. Yes, credit card data was probably pushed around - which is illegal, but which was already illegal before. But all the fuss about the alleged hackers, the great investigative work and the great success with the "breakup" is simply ridiculous.